Listen, if you can't think of 50 good examples of "the not perfect" Obama's ignorance or lies (or his hiding his college achievements) this far into his presidency, then you're a lost cause because you just don't care.

Well, Groofius, Obama's grades don't seem to be a matter of public record (except that he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, which isn't too shabby), but http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2008/09/barack-obama-ha.html is a reprint of an article from 1990 about Obama (he'd just become editor of the Harvard Law Review) which says, e.g., that he "quickly distinguished himself as a top student" at Harvard and quotes a professor there as saying "other students who might have something approximating his degree of insight are very intimidating to other students or inconsiderate and thoughtless", which seems like a good indication that he was pretty impressive there.

Do you have any reason to think that Obama's academic performance at Harvard was poor, or are you just blowing smoke?

So he's smart in some areas, dumb in others. He's just dumb in different ways from Bachmann.

I know that if any Republican claimed a 3000% decrease in anything, Shallit would've relished attacking him or her, along with the scores of supporters who looked on without batting an eyelash. He would not have called it a "small slip".

Obama said: "Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee -- which is my committee -- a bill to call for divestment from Iran . . ."

He was never on that committee.

Even AirAmerica called Obama a "charming liar"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhYzOni6tbw

Other dumb things, among many:

"Michael -- Thanks so much for the wonderful letter, and the good advise ... "That's fromhttp://0.tqn.com/d/usconservatives/1/0/F/7/-/-/obama-error-suntimes.jpg

And there's the dumbness in being friends with Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Bernadine Dohrn. But that's a whole 'nother issue.

Oh, that's right. Obama isn't perfect.

Shallit writes: "Every serious commentator gives Obama credit for being smart, and one doesn't get to be on Harvard Law Review if one is stupid."

True. However, affirmative action couldn't hurt. According to the NYT:http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html.

Mr. Obama was elected after a meeting of the review's 80 editors that convened Sunday and lasted until early this morning, a participant said.

Until the 1970's the editors were picked on the basis of grades, and the president of the Law Review was the student with the highest academic rank. Among these were Elliot L. Richardson, the former Attorney General, and Irwin Griswold, a dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor General under Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.

That system came under attack in the 1970's and was replaced by a program in which about half the editors are chosen for their grades and the other half are chosen by fellow students after a special writing competition. The new system, disputed when it began, was meant to help insure that minority students became editors of The Law Review. "

I'm not fond of Obama. He's too timid and centrist for me and he has broken too many campaign promises (failing to reign in PATRIOT act, etc).

However, the grade thing has gotta be off base. He didn't have family connections, and his high school grades were good enough to get him to Columbia (currently the 4th most selective college in the US). His college grades were good enough to get him to Harvard Law (also the 4th most selective US law school, I think), and he graduated with high honors from Harvard Law. I think he got pretty good grades at all levels, but perhaps his preschool grades are a bit suspect.

Jeffrey, I disagree with you about Bachmann being dumb. She's ignorant and incurious, but not that dumb, which makes her much, much more dangerous. I think of her as the smart Palin.

If the Republicans have half a brain, the nominee will be Huntsman. He has by far the best chance of winning in the general election, but he'll have trouble making it out of the primary because the evangelicals won't like him.

Michele Bachmann's Fact-Checking Pays Off"Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann's campaign manager, Ed Rollins, caused a bit of a stir when he promised that everything his candidate says on the trail will be "100-percent fact-checked." This seemed like a pretty daunting challenge; we noted at the time that the non-partisan fact-checking site PolitiFact had never fact-checked a Bachmann statement and found it to be anything but "false" or "very false"—the only major political figure for which that was the case.

Michelle is a great candidate... for a Democrat to run against in the Presidential election. I applaud her campaign for its potential to elevate and highlight the Republican party movers 'n shakers, particularly those in the religious right. It's time for mainstream Republicans to say 'WTF?' and take back their party from the ideologues responsible for wrecking the GOP.

Groofuis:He's just dumb in different ways from Bachmann.

Perhaps, but Obama's 'dumbness' isn't necessarily in areas affecting governance or perhaps knowledge of the natural world (e.g. global warming, evolution). He also seems free from the religious doctrine that cutting taxes is always the best thing to do.

I'm pissed that he hasn't gone after torturers within the CIA or the previous administration for advocating waterboarding (but I recognise that it would seriously split the country). I'm pissed that he's gone into Libya but I'm happy that he's tried to make some impact on extending health insurance to more Americans, hasn't gutted the EPA or FDA, and is trying to improve the nation's decaying infrastructure (an investment in the future). He's managing Iraq and Afghanistan about as well as anyone can, given the crappiness of the available options. He also hasn't been much of an impediment to societal progression toward tolerance of gays. Overall, he's been one of the few adults in the room, and governed largely as a moderate.

Brendan: If the Republicans have half a brain, the nominee will be Huntsman.

Either Mormon would be better than the rest of the field. Romney would also have a reasonable chance of defeating Obama. But I don't see it happening. Huntsman and Romney are too reality-based. For example, neither argues against evolution or global warming. Also neither have the 'right' religion for many Evangelicals. Even worse, neither are sufficiently anti-gay, having expressed support for same-sex unions. Business and moderates may like them but the social conservatives will think them RINOs, likely to commit 'compromise' (which equals 'heresy' among those folks and Tea Partiers).

"While President Obama’s odd characterization on “The View” of African-Americans as a “mongrel people” ( http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/111611-obama-calls-african-americans-a-mongrel-people- ) has set the blogosphere aflutter, it was something else he told the assembled ladies that struck me as more significant. According to Sam Youngman of The Hill, in a discussion on racism, “Obama noted ‘there’s still a reptilian side of our brain’ that leads people to not trust others ‘if somebody sounds different or looks different.’ ”

Given that the president’s academic background is in Constitutional law and not evolutionary biology, we can forgive him if he’s unaware that the neuroscientist Paul McLean’s triune brain theory, which popularized the idea that the basal ganglia was a “reptile brain” constantly driving mankind toward his basest instincts, has long fallen out of scientific favor."

Again, I'm no fan of Bachmann, but did she go golfing for the 11th weekend in a row after writing that he doesn't get enough time with her kids?

" And even though my sister and I were lucky enough to be raised by a wonderful mother and caring grandparents, I always felt his absence and wondered what it would have been like if he had been a greater presence in my life. I still do. It is perhaps for this reason that fatherhood is so important to me, and why I’ve tried so hard to be there for my own children.

That’s not to say I’ve always been a perfect dad. I haven’t. When Malia and Sasha were younger, work kept me away from home more than it should have. At times, the burden of raising our two daughters has fallen too heavily on Michelle. During the campaign, not a day went by that I didn’t wish I could spend more time with the family I love more than anything else in the world."

But...

"Having clearly had enough of the solitude of Camp David, where he and the family were making a rare weekend sojourn, the president choppered early this morning directly to Andrews and headed straight to the Air Force base golf course. Not clear whether Michelle and the girls are still at Camp David or back at the White House.

Today makes 11 weekends in a row that Obama has gone golfing. It’s his 14th outing this year and the 72nd of his presidency."

"While President Obama’s odd characterization on “The View” of African-Americans as a “mongrel people” ( http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/111611-obama-calls-african-americans-a-mongrel-people- ) has set the blogosphere aflutter, it was something else he told the assembled ladies that struck me as more significant. According to Sam Youngman of The Hill, in a discussion on racism, “Obama noted ‘there’s still a reptilian side of our brain’ that leads people to not trust others ‘if somebody sounds different or looks different.’ ”Given that the president’s academic background is in Constitutional law and not evolutionary biology, we can forgive him if he’s unaware that the neuroscientist Paul McLean’s triune brain theory, which popularized the idea that the basal ganglia was a “reptile brain” constantly driving mankind toward his basest instincts, has long fallen out of scientific favor."

Other than certain negative connotations attached to the word "mongrel," what is wrong with his claim that african-americans are largely of mixed-race ancestry?

And why do you think Obama was referring to McLean's theory? As you concede, Obama is not a neuroscientist, so it's doubtful he even knows who McLean is. That said, the notion of a "reptile" brain is a general notion from neuroscience and mammalian evolution that is not specific to any one theory from these fields. When we speak of the "reptilian" parts of a mammalian brain, we are referring to the subcortical parts (as in mammals have a cortex while reptiles don't). These parts of the brain ARE responsible for base instincts and emotion, so Obama's statements as you presented them are not that outlandish (e.g. fear is well known to be a function of the amygdala, fear leads to distrust of others, and the amygdala is subcortical).

Groofius quickly deserved a trolling mention in my book. Good, so I don't have to wade through his ramblings.On the other hand, worse than picking Bachmann as a favorite for 2012, there was another post on Douglas Groothuis's blog which was more troubling: Bachmann and ID. It also does not allow comments, and read: "The civil government should not dominate the ideology of the state schools, as it now does. Darwinism is the de facto religion of mandatory, state education. How free and democratic is that?

My tax money goes to support a scientifically-flawed ideology that I do not accept and which I oppose. This is wrong. A wise politician will see it. Michele Backmann does."I have no problem with ID being taught in churches and religious diploma/degree mills. It's where it belongs.The old objection still stands: if ID fanatics want to promote ID as an alternative scientific theory, let them compete in scientific fora, of which there is no scarcity. Oh, but I forget: They are persecuted and denied access.

It's amazing that the same people that promote unscientific theories like ID are also the ones who decry the fact that public schools are bad and that they are to blame for U.S. students lagging in every measure of academic performance in comparison to students in other advanced countries.

And don't even get me started on the "tax money that goes to support a scientifically flawed ideology" which Groothuis opposes. If I were to get a refund for every penny spent to support flawed ideas and programs that benefit things I disagree I would have retired a long time ago. Not to mention the fact that churches are tax-exempt, even when they openly advocate support for political candidates of certain stripes, which they are forbidden to do if they want to keep their tax-exempt status.

Al asks, "Other than certain negative connotations attached to the word "mongrel," what is wrong with his claim that african-americans are largely of mixed-race ancestry?"

Nothing, but you're diverting from the main point. The main point is that he used the insensitive word "mongrel" (and the phrase "typical white woman", not to mention his "it was like the Special Olympics.") It was dumb to say that. (Imagine if Bachmann said "homo" instead of "homosexual".) Of course, not as dumb as "3000% decrease in insurance premiums" or his "profit and earning ratios."

Oh, and I don't care if Obama knew about McLean's law, and you'll see that neither did the source I quoted, if you read it carefully.

Little Dougie Groothuis routinely avoids criticism and backing up his assertions - a move not fitting of a man that honors himself with the title of 'philosopher.' "The Constructive Ideologue" is a better fit for that boy.

Obama's own economics advisors admit that his Stimulus program was a failure.

"When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now. In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it. In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs."